Review: The 9th Judgment by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (April 26 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316036277
ISBN-13: 978-0316036276

Synopsis:

The most personal

A young mother and her infant child are ruthlessly gunned down while returning to their car in the garage of a shopping mall. There are no witnesses, and Detective Lindsay Boxer is left with only one shred of evidence: a cryptic message scrawled across the windshield in bloodred lipstick.

The most dangerous

The same night, the wife of A-list actor Marcus Dowling is woken by a cat burglar who is about to steal millions of dollars' worth of precious jewels. In just seconds there is a nearly empty safe, a lifeless body, and another mystery that throws San Francisco into hysteria.

The most exciting Women's Murder Club novel ever (Click here to continue reading the book description)

This is the first of James Patterson's mystery novels that I've read though I've heard so much about his work. I actually watched The Women's Murder Club when it was on TV, so I had a sense of Lindsay Boxer (the main character), but was curious to see the differences between the book and TV versions.

For me, this wasn't exactly a whodunit as much as a "why did they do it?" and "how will Lindsay (et al) catch the culprits?" since we learn the "who's" at the beginning. I found it to be a fast paced read and would normally also refer to it as a "light read" but the subject matter was quite dark (the killing of the mom and child.) It was upsetting, to say the least.

As for the differences between the two, there were a few noticeable ones, like Lindsay having blonde hair versus Angie Harmon's dark locks but overall, the feel was much the same. I would be interested to go back and read the character developments in this series at a future time as the others involved were only lightly discussed throughout.

While not the most complicated story line, The 9th Judgment is a great book to read if you're in between novels and looking for something that requires little effort. I would definitely recommend the Lindsay Boxer series to fans of cop dramas. It did keep my attention until the very end and left us with a bit of a cliff-hanger. Not bad, overall.